- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The seminar, set for 4:10 p.m., Pacific Time, will be virtual only, announced seminar series coordinator Emily Meineke, an urban landscape entomologist and assistant professor.
The Zoom link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
His abstract: "Because they vector pathogens to humans, mosquitoes impact millions of people every year. The global strategy for the management of mosquito-borne diseases involves controlling vector populations, to a large extent, through insecticide application. However, vector-borne diseases are now resurgent, largely because of rising insecticide resistance in vector populations and the drug resistance of pathogens. In this context, the Vinauger Lab studies the molecular, physiological, and neural basis of mosquito behavior. We rely on a collaborative, integrative, and
multidisciplinary approach, at the intersection between data science, neuro-ethology, molecular biology, and chemical ecology. Our long-term goal is to identify targets to disrupt mosquito-host interactions and reduce mosquito-borne disease transmission."
On his website, Vinauger elaborates: "The ability of mosquitoes to detect, process, and respond to olfactory information emitted by their hosts can affect disease transmission. The magnitude of their responses to host and plant odors varies drastically throughout the day, but, despite their clear epidemiological relevance, the neural and molecular mechanisms acting at the circuit levels to control mosquito behavior remain to be determined. In the lab, we employ an interdisciplinary approach combining behavioral assays, electrophysiological recordings, transcriptomic analysis, and CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, to characterize rhythms in odorant detection, perception, and olfactory behavior, thereby identifying the genetic basis of the temporal plasticity in mosquito-host interactions."
Molecular geneticist and physiologist Joanna Chiu, professor and vice chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology and a Chancellor's Fellow, will serve as the host. "I have very high regard for Dr. Vinauger's integrative and multidisciplinary research into the biochemical and neurophysiological basis of insect behavior," Professor Chiu said. "His research program is innovative and rigorous, leveraging techniques in quantitative behavioral analysis, bioengineering, neurobiology, and computational methods to address exciting and important questions in mosquito biology and behavior."
The Vinauger lab "studies the molecular, physiological, and neural basis of mosquito behavior," according to its website. "We are a group of experimental biologists, relying on a collaborative, integrative, and multidisciplinary approach, at the intersection between data science, neuro-ethology, molecular biology, and chemical ecology. Our long-term goal is to identify targets to disrupt mosquito-host interactions and reduce mosquito-borne disease transmission."
The Vinauger lab's latest publication, "Visual Threats Reduce Blood-Feeding and Trigger Escape Responses in Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes," appears in the Dec. 9, 2022 edition of Scientific Reports.
The abstract:
"The diurnal mosquitoes Aedes aegypti are vectors of several arboviruses, including dengue, yellow fever, and Zika viruses. To find a host to feed on, they rely on the sophisticated integration of olfactory, visual, thermal, and gustatory cues emitted by the hosts. If detected by their target, this latter may display defensive behaviors that mosquitoes need to be able to detect and escape in order to survive. In humans, a typical response is a swat of the hand, which generates both mechanical and visual perturbations aimed at a mosquito. Here, we used programmable visual displays to generate expanding objects sharing characteristics with the visual component of an approaching hand and quantified the behavioral response of female mosquitoes. Results show that Ae. aegypti is capable of using visual information to decide whether to feed on an artificial host mimic. Stimulations delivered in a LED flight arena further reveal that landed Ae. aegypti females display a stereotypical escape strategy by taking off at an angle that is a function of the direction of stimulus introduction. Altogether, this study demonstrates that mosquitoes landed on a host mimic can use isolated visual cues to detect and avoid a potential threat."
Vinauger joined the Virginia Tech faculty in October 2017, after serving as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Washington, Seattle. Educated in France, he received his bachelor of science degree in biology/biological sciences in 2006 from the University of Orléans; his master's degree in 2008 from the University of Tours, France; and his doctorate in 2011 from the University of Tours, Research Institute on Insect Biology.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology seminars are held on Wednesdays through March 15. (See schedule.) Eight of the 10 will be in-person in 122 Briggs Hall, and all will be virtual.

- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The parallel, cluster-randomized, controlled trial revealed that a spatial repellent, currently under review by the World Health Organization (WHO), reduced human Aedes-borne virus infection by 34.1 percent.
“That is a significant statistical and public health reduction,” said Scott, an internationally recognized medical entomologist who retired from the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology in 2015 but continues his scientific research on the ecology and epidemiology of dengue, a mosquito-borne viral infection transmitted mainly by A. aegypti. Dengue, one of the most rapidly increasing vector-borne infectious diseases, infects some 400 million people a year, with 4 billion people at risk annually.
The clinical study results mean that spatial repellents have “the potential to reduce a variety of vector-borne diseases, augment existing public health efforts, and can be an effective component in vector control intervention strategies,” Scott said.
The newly published research, “Efficacy of a Spatial Repellent for Control of Aedes-borne Virus Transmission: A Cluster-Randomized Trial in Iquitos, Peru,” appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the research in a grant to the University of Notre Dame (UND). Medical entomologist Nicole Achee, a research professor at UND, served as the project leader.
“To have shown a substantial public health impact at an endemic site, is rewarding,” said Scott, now a resident of Luck, Wis. “Our results provide valuable new data on mosquito control that will help to fill long-standing knowledge gaps and improve guidance for development of enhanced public health policy. Because literally billions of people around the globe are at risk of infection and disease from these viruses we are encouraged that results from our trial will contribute to improved health and well-being of so many people.”
Epidemiologist Amy Morrison, a 1996-2018 project scientist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and now with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine's Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, served as the lead author of the PNAS paper. “This trial was the most logistically challenging field project I've ever participated in,” she said. “I led the field efforts in Iquitos, Peru where I have resided since 1998. Our research team continued to amaze me; they had to replace more than 20,000 products in more than 2,000 houses every 15 days and managed 80 percent coverage of participating houses. This type of vector control trial is very difficult to carry out so demonstrating protective efficacy is very gratifying.”
Achee said the Peru study outcomes “are a critical component to achieving our goals for supporting a WHO policy endorsement for spatial repellents. The reduction in Aedes-borne virus infection in at-risk participants seen in trial results have fundamentally contributed to the WHO encouraging further consideration for the use of this product class in public health worldwide. This is a historical milestone that was led by the UC Davis implementing team and I am thrilled to have been part of the collaborative effort."
Spatial repellents are “devices that contain volatile active ingredients that disperse in air,” the authors explained. “The active ingredients can repel mosquitoes from entering a treated space, inhibit attraction to human host cues, or disrupt mosquito biting and blood-feeding behavior and, thus, interfere with mosquito–human contact. Any of these outcomes reduce the probability of pathogen transmission.”
More than half of the world population is at risk for infection with viruses transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, including include dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever, the scientists wrote.
Vector interventions are needed for Aedes-borne viral (ABV) disease prevention “but their application is hindered by the lack of evidence proving they prevent infection or disease," they wrote. "Results from our ABV study will help guide public health authorities responsible for operational management and worldwide ABV disease control and incentivize new strategies for disease prevention.”
“The primary mosquito vector, Aedes aegypti, thrives in modern tropical urban environments. Despite decades of effort to control Ae. aegypti populations and prevent disease, the geographic range of illness and the viruses this mosquito transmits continue to expand,” they related. “Rigorously proven vector control interventions that measure protective efficacy against Aedes-borne viruses are limited to Wolbachia in a single trial in Indonesia and do not include any chemical interventions. Spatial repellents, a new option for efficient vector control, are designed to decrease human exposure to Aedes-borne viruses by releasing active ingredients into the air that disrupt mosquito–human contact and, thus, reduce the risk of human infection.”
The Iquitos trial is one of two trials recommended by WHO for assessing public health value and developing global health policy for the intervention class of spatial repellents. “Fully integrating vector control into Aedes-borne viral disease prevention programs requires quantitative guidance based on quantitative measures of the impact from each intervention component,” the authors wrote. “Ministries of Health, local to national governments, and nongovernmental organizations can use the Peru trial results as an evidence base for informed application of spatial repellents. Considering the growing public health threat from Aedes-borne viral disease, difficulties of developing vaccines against multiple viruses, and past poorly informed vector control failures, enhanced Aedes-borne viral disease prevention will benefit greatly from interventions, like the Peru trial, with proven public health value.
Thomas Scott. Scott, a member of three WHO committees and one of the world's Highly Cited Researchers for the third consecutive year, co-chairs a Lancet Commission that focuses on how prevention of viruses transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. He served on the faculty of the Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, from 1983 to 1996 before joining the UC Davis entomology faculty as a professor of entomology and director of the Vector-Borne Disease Laboratory. Highly honored by his peers, Scott won the coveted Harry Hoogstraal Medal from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 2018. He is a fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Entomological Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He holds bachelor and master's degrees from Bowling Green (Ohio) State University and a doctorate in ecology in 1981 from Pennsylvania State University.
Amy Morrison. Morrison, who holds a doctorate in public health from Yale University, with a concentration in epidemiology of infectious diseases, and a master's degree in public health from UCLA, has served as the principal investigator, co-principal investigator and a collaborator on a number of federally funded grants. She specializes in the epidemiology of tropical vector-borne diseases, with an emphasis on (1) arthropod vector ecology and dengue virus transmission dynamics and (2) spatial and temporal analyses using Geographic Information Systems.
As a project scientist, Morrison supervises multiple studies on A. aegypti and dengue virus transmission dynamics, including longitudinal cohort studies evaluating A. aegypti control interventions, and the role of human movement in dengue transmission dynamics in Iquitos, funded by National Institutes of Health, Military Infectious Disease Research Program and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She is an active member of the American Mosquito Control Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Entomological Society of America, American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and the Society of Vector Ecologists.
Nicole Achee. Achee is a research associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, UND, and holds a joint associate professor appointment in the Eck Institute for Global Health, UND. She worked as a medical entomologist in the international settings of Belize, Indonesia, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, South Korea, Suriname, Tanzania and Thailand. Her curriculum vitae includes principal investigator for large scale clinical trials in Peru and Indonesia. Both studies aimed “to generate evidence of the protective efficacy of spatial repellents for prevention of malaria and dengue human infections for use toward full World Health Organization public health policy recommendations,” she says on her website. Achee holds a doctorate in medical entomology from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science, Bethesda, Md.
In addition to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Iquitos project drew support from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Military Infectious Disease Research Program and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.


- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Kelly will be honored at an awards luncheon during the annual PBESA meeting, set April 10-13 in Santa Rosa. The branch encompasses 11 Western states, parts of Canada and Mexico and several U.S. territories.
Kelly, who joined the Attardo lab in 2018, is the two-term president of the UC Davis Equity in STEM and Entrepreneurship (ESTEME) and serves as the vice president of the Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA).
"She excels in leadership, as well as in research, academics and public service," wrote Steve Nadler, professor and chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, in his letter of nomination. Known as Taylor, she "is an important role model, sharing her enthusiasm for entomology and other sciences with the public, and eagerly supporting undergraduate students and others on their paths to scientific careers."
Taylor drew strong support from doctoral candidate Jill Oberski, president of EGSA and an active member of ESTEME; ESTEME past president Alexus Roberts, and ESTEME colleague Sophie Zhu. The organization supports greater equity and inclusion in science, helping help low-income, underrepresented, non-traditional students face and overcome the overwhelming barriers in reaching their goals. They also organize and coordinate activities for K-12 students and undergraduates, while also providing professional development events for fellow members.
Helping Fellow Graduate Students. Taylor's leadership activities in EGSA include collaborating with her peers to provide resources to support incoming students. Each year she collects information about awards they can apply for, and the courses that need teaching assistants. "She surveys students on their cost-of-living needs, and works with our administration to secure the assistance they need," wrote Nadler. "She continually shares information related to living in Davis and thriving in graduate school." Since 2019, Kelly has helped the EGSA coordinate the department's UC Davis Picnic Day activities, leading the EGSA committee in 2020-21. She also serves on the UC Davis Graduate Admissions Committee.
Taylor's leadership activities in EGSA include collaborating with her EGSA peers to provide resources to support incoming students. Each year she collects information about awards they can apply for, and the courses that need teaching assistants. "She surveys students on their cost-of-living needs, and works with our administration to secure the assistance they need," wrote Nadler. "She continually shares information related to living in Davis and thriving in graduate school." In addition, she is the EGSA coordinator of the department's UC Davis Picnic Day activities and serves on the UC Davis Graduate Admissions Committee.
Kelly won a coveted first-place award at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting last November with her poster, “Metabolic Snapshot: Using Metabolomics to Compare Near-Wild and Colonized Aedes aegypti.” She has been instrumental in teaching the graduate student offering of ENT 010 (Natural History of Insects).
Her major professor, medical entomologist and geneticist Geoffrey Attardo, praises her strong leadership, her excellence as a doctoral student and her strong leadership role in his lab. "She is dedicated, self-motivated, compassionate, enthusiastic, confident, and demonstrates deep-rooted integrity in how she goes about her work and her interactions with colleagues and students," Attardo wrote in his letter of recommendation. "Within the lab, Taylor plays a strong leadership role, critical to the mentorship of undergraduate researchers who join the lab. Taylor greatly helps assist students with training in experimental design and execution; reading and interpretation of the scientific literature; training in data analysis; and scientific writing. Her mentorship manifested in the publication of a first- author manuscript (van Schoor et al.) by a talented undergraduate researcher in my group. The work explores the relationship between larval dietary composition and adult outcomes in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Taylor is always willing to help lab members with their projects and plays a key role in maintaining the lab's welcoming atmosphere and research successes."
People-Motivated. Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey, the faculty chair of the department's Picnic Day activities, says that "Taylor ranks among the most people-motivated graduate students I have had the pleasure to work with.”
“Setting aside for the moment Taylor's top flight academic background and qualifications, I have found her to be the ideal collaborator, very cooperative, consistently cheerful, perfectly dependable, and delightful to work with,” Kimsey related. “Competition may or may not select for exceptional researchers, but often selects for difficult characters. Taylor almost uniquely combines high productivity and intense curiosity with a delightful personality, an ideal combination to have in a program in which people must survive with each other. She has been an excellent graduate student, very gregarious, conscientious, with an exceptional ability to work with persons of any sort. She ranks among the most people-motivated graduate students I have had the pleasure to work with.”
UC Davis medical entomologist Anthony Cornel, who leads the Mosquito Control Research Laboratory in Parlier, works with Taylor on insecticide resistance in mosquitoes. “Taylor's PhD project is challenging as she endeavors to tease apart the biochemical and genetic factors that cause resistance to some commonly used insecticides to control Aedes aegypti," Cornel wrote. "Ae. aegypti is considered the second most dangerous insect worldwide because of its role in transmission of dengue, yellow fever, Zika and Chikungunya viruses which cause considerable morbidity and mortality. Hence, it is an important organism to study especially to eventually improve measures to control this mosquito."
Critical Thinker. "Taylor has done very well as a PhD student, so far, having 4 publications related to Ae. aegypti, 3 publications on webspinners (Embioptera) and 2 publications related to astrobiology," Cornel related. “My interactions with her convince me that she is a critical thinker and questions everything before undertaking tasks and experiments. These are attributes of a young scientist that will stand her in good stead to become excellent in academia. Almost all successful academics think out of the box and can work independently and collegially. She works with several other graduate and research assistants, and everyone likes her kindness, honesty, and helpfulness. Taylor's interests so far have mostly related to entomology systematics, genetics, and metabolomics. She has expressed her desire to remain as an entomologist beyond her graduate studies. She will always be a wonderful ambassador for entomology and her diverse knowledge of disciplines from systematics to behavior to protein and DNA studies makes her an excellent entomologist indeed.”
Taylor holds a bachelor of science degree in biology, with a minor in chemistry, from Santa Clara University, where she served as president of the campuswide Biology Club and led STEM projects, encouraging and guiding underrepresented students to seek careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
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- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Professor Scott, who now resides in Luck, Wis., is internationally known for his work on the ecology and epidemiology of dengue, a mosquito-borne viral infection transmitted mainly by Aedes aegypti.
Only 1 percent of researchers make the global list of Highly Recited Researchers, as announced by Clarivate. The Web of Science Group, the information and technology provider for the global scientific research community, annually honors the 1 percent of scientists whose publications are the most cited in scientific papers.
One in 1000. "Of the world's scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers truly are one in 1,000," according to the Web of Science website.
Scott is one of 14 researchers from UC Davis--and one of some 6660 worldwide--to achieve the 2021 honor.
Scott's 19 publications listed in the report have been cited a total of 402 times. His most cited publication: “The Current and Future Global Distribution and Population at Risk of Dengue,” published in Nature Microbiology in 2019.
“Being a Highly Cited Researcher means a lot to me because it's an objective measure of the extent to which the scientific community finds helpful the work that my colleagues and I did,” said Scott, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology) in 1996. “ I was privileged to work with exceptionally smart, hard-working, and insightful people. We had a lot of fun, but we also took our science seriously. We challenged each other in constructive and collegial ways. We are proud of the results of our efforts.”
“Because I enjoy it, I am continuing to explore science and public health,” Scott said. “Presently, I am involved in a variety of activities that range from writing manuscripts to kicking off new studies to serving on scientific and public health policy projects and committees. “
Healthy Cites, Healthy People. Scott co-chairs a Lancet Commission that focuses on how prevention of viruses transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes fits into the growing Healthy Cities, Healthy People movement. Lancet Commissions are tasked with identifying the most pressing issues in science, medicine, and global health, with the aim of providing recommendations that change health policy or improve practice. “In this case, we are making the case for Cities without Aedes,” Scott said. "We aim to reduce the burden and threat from Aedes transmitted viruses through improved construction and management of modern urban environments that build Aedes mosquitoes out of cities and towns.”
Scott is a collaborator in a clinical trial designed to demonstrate and quantify the protective efficacy of a spatial repellent to reduce human mosquito transmitted virus infection in Sri Lanka. “This new project,” he said, “builds on a randomized controlled clinical trial that my colleagues I recently completed in Iquitos, Peru, which revealed a significant protective efficacy of a spatial repellent against human infection. Publication of those results a currently under review.”
Scott's other activities include being a scientific advisor for a clinical trial in Brazil that is testing the public health benefit of Wolbachia for prevention of viruses transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. “The study will assess the efficacy of releasing Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegypti into the environment in reducing human virus infection compared to standard vector control measures alone,” he said.
Scott serves on three World Health Organization committees, “which I find particularly rewarding because of their potential to improve public health policy and thus global health.”
Among his other activities:
- Chair of a group that is writing a chapter on Dengue Vector Control Guidelines that will be included in the updated version of WHO guidelines for dengue diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and control.
- Co-chair of the Wolbachia Evidence Review Group. “Mosquitoes infected with the endosymbionic bacteria Wolbachia are designed to have reduced capacity to become infected with and transmit a variety of viruses, which is expected to reduce human disease,” Scott explains. “Results from our deliberations will help the World Health Organization to develop guidelines for member States on the application of this exciting new intervention strategy.”
- Member of the World Health Organization Technical Advisory Group on the Global Integrated Arboviruses Initiative. The Arbovirus Initiative focuses on strengthening the coordination, communication, capacity building,research, preparedness, and response needed to mitigate the growing risk of epidemics due to arthropod transmitted viral diseases. Scott describes it as “a collaborative effort between the World Health Emergency Program, the Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, and the Immunization, Vaccines, and Biological Department at WHO. Members of the Technical Advisory Group have a broad range of expertise (clinical management, diagnostics, epidemiology, vector control, virology, vaccines, and travel medicine) and serve in an advisory capacity to WHO with a focus on essential and strategic guidance on management of disease. Our current focus is finalizing the Global Integrated Arboviruses Initiative, which will be presented to the World Health Assembly for review and approval.”
Scott, who holds bachelor and master's degrees from Bowling Green (Ohio) State University, received his doctorate in ecology in 1981 from Pennsylvania State University and did postdoctoral research in epidemiology at Yale University School of Medicine's Arbovirus Research Unit, part of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. He served on the faculty of the Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, from 1983 to 1996 before joining the UC Davis entomology faculty as a professor of entomology and director of the Vector-Borne Disease Laboratory. He was acting director of the UC Davis Center for Vector-Borne Research from 1996 to 1999, and director of the UC Davis Arbovirus Research Unit (2001-2003). He was selected vice chair of the Department of Entomology in 2006, serving until 2008.
Highly honored by his peers, Scott won the coveted Harry Hoogstraal Medal from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 2018. His other honors include fellow of three organizations: American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (2014), Entomological Society of America (2010), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2008). He was named a UC Davis distinguished professor in 2014. In 2015, he won the Charles W. Woodworth Award, the highest honor awarded by the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America.
Who's Who. The methodology that determines the “who's who” of influential researchers draws on the data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate. It also uses the tallies to identify the countries and research institutions where these citation elite are based.
The complete list of UC Davis-affiliated scientists listed in the 2021 Highly Cited Researchers
- Andreas Bäumler, Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine
- Eduardo Blumwald, Plant Sciences, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
- Siobhan Brady, Plant and Animal Science, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
- Mariana Byndloss, formerly with Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine
- Magdalene Cerda, formerly with Emergency Medicine, UC Davis Health System
- Alan Crozier, Nutrition, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
- Kathryn Dewey Nutrition, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
- Jonathan Eisen, Evolution and Ecology, Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Genome Center, Center for Population Biology
- Oliver Fiehn, Genome Center
- Carlito Lebrilla, Chemistry, College of Letters and Science
- David A. Mills, Food Science and Technology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
- Sally Rogers, Psychiatry and Psychology, UC Davis Health System
- Thomas W. Scott,Entomology and Nematology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
- Andrew Sih, Environmental Science and Policy, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Fischer, a member of the Mosquito Research Group, Department of Ecology, Genetics and Evolution, will speak on "The Recent Expansion of Aedes aegypti Distribution: Are the Populations Adapting to Colder Climate Regions?" at 4:10 p.m., Pacific Time. The Zoom link is https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/99515291076.
She will be introduced by UC Davis doctoral student Erin Taylor Kelly of the laboratory of medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo.
"The mosquito Aedes aegypti, vector of dengue and other arboviruses, has recently expanded its distribution towards colder climate regions," Fischer says in her abstract. "This might be favored by an adaptation of the populations to local conditions. We explore the larval tolerance to low temperatures and the photo period-induced embryonic diapause as possible mechanisms occurring in temperate Argentina."
"My main research interest is on mosquito ecology, and my current project aims to analyze the effects of environmental conditions (photo period, temperature, humidity) and resources (larval food) on the fitness of Aedes aegypti," she writes on ResearchGate. "I am also interested in human caused environmental change and its consequences on vector borne diseases."
Fischer recently co-authored a research paper on Behavior of Aedes albifasciatus (Diptera: Culicidae) larvae from eggs with different dormancy times and its relationship with parasitism by Strelkovimermis spiculatus (Nematoda: Mermithidae).
Kelly, seminar host, researches the A. aegypti in the Attardo lab. She won a first-place award at the Entomological Society of America meeting last November with her poster, “Metabolic Snapshot: Using Metabolomics to Compare Near-Wild and Colonized Aedes aegypti.” She competed in the Physiology, Biochemistry and Ecology Section. (See https://bit.ly/3HJR0IF).
Fischer's talk meshes with the work of the Geoffrey Attardo laboratory. In one of his research projects, Attardo investigates the threat of these invasive mosquitoes, which have gained a foothold and spread throughout the state, putting California at risk for Aedes-vectored diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever. Attardo studies the prevalence and physiology of insecticide resistance in Californian populations and evaluates the use of genetic markers to predict insecticide resistance and to track movement of genetically independent populations of aegypti throughout the state. Attardo and his lab are also currently developing novel biochemically oriented methods of insecticide resistance quantification to identify compounds that mosquito abatement districts can use for monitoring, and to define the biochemical pathways required to maintain this problematic adaptation.
The department's weekly seminars, held at 4:10 p.m. on Wednesdays, are coordinated by nematologist Shahid Siddique, who may be emailed at ssiddique@ucdavis.edu with any technical questions.
